June #2
‘Anchovy pasta’s fine, but …’ My thoughts started to race, to tumble, out of control. I gripped the edge of the counter. ‘There are so many ways we could do this.’
He hesitated, tomatoes in one hand, knife in the other, and for a moment I half expected him to turn it into a joke, to hold them up in the air and ask, This?
But he didn’t. It was too late for jokes, and he knew it.
We both did. ‘Such as?’ One by one, he pulled the tomatoes from the stalk and started chopping.
‘Well, for one, egg freezing.’
‘To what end, Cathy?’
I wanted to suggest that he put down the knife while we were having this conversation in case he cut himself.
‘You know I’m not going to change my mind.’
‘But how can you be sure? How can any of us?’ When he didn’t answer, a word formed on the tip of my tongue : selfish. I swallowed it, wondering whether it was meant for him or for me.
Because he’d tried, hadn’t he? To change his mind, to confront the trauma of losing a baby.
Talking it through with a therapist, once a week, for several months, not all that long after he and his ex-wife separated.
He’d known then that it would be a problem, a roadblock to future relationships, and he’d attempted to solve it.
As it turned out, talking it through had only cemented what he’d already felt in his mind to be true.
He stopped chopping.
‘Noah,’ I said, gently, ‘you know how unlikely it is that it would happen again.’
‘It’s more than that,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘You’re allowed to move on.’ Like she has, I considered saying but didn’t.
‘I have moved on, Cathy, with you. I’m happy.’
‘You’re sure?’ I asked. ‘You’re sure you’re not afraid?’ I paused, trying to gauge his reaction. ‘After all, you wanted one before.’
‘That was different.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was young, Cathy. I hadn’t had time to weigh up what I wanted, how I wanted my life to be.’
In a smaller voice, I asked, ‘And what about our baby? You said we would have made it work if I’d wanted to keep it.’
‘Because you were already pregnant.’
‘So accidentally having a child is OK, but intentionally having one isn’t?’
‘You know that’s not what I mean.’
Of course I did. I bit my lip in an effort to stop myself from saying anything else that would leave me with a lingering pool of guilt in my stomach later in the evening.
‘We would have made it work, but it wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. I’m sorry. It won’t ever be.’
Selfish. I tried to swallow it again, but before I could, my lips started moving, rapidly.
‘And what about me? Just because you’re not going to change your mind, it doesn’t mean I won’t.
Put yourself in my position. Can you imagine what it feels like for even a small part of me to question whether I might want to be a mother one day, and to have the pressure of knowing that, if I don’t do something now, that might not be possible? ’
He put down the knife and turned around to face me, except this time, he didn’t look at me.
Instead, he directed his gaze towards the ceiling, the way he does whenever he’s unconvinced.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say. Great, let’s do it!
Is that it? Always good to have a back-up plan!
’ His eyes lowered to meet mine. ‘Because that’s what this is – you know that, right?
You stick with me for as long as you can bear it, then when you can’t wait any longer, you leave me for a man who is willing to be a dad, happy in the knowledge that it’s still, as you call it, a “possibility”. ’
I felt dizzy, the kind you experience as a child after spinning in circles with your arms outstretched. ‘That’s not it,’ I said, coiling my fingers more tightly around the edge of the counter. ‘Please don’t say that.’
‘Isn’t it? I’ve been here before, Cathy. I know how it ends.’
Anna wasn’t the only woman to call things off with Noah when he told her he imagined his life without children.
But she was the only one to do so without hesitation.
Others tried to stick it out. They thought they would be the one to change him, that he’d come around to what they saw as the default conclusion.
When he didn’t, there were difficult conversations, disagreements.
Eventually, the relationships turned sour, and he was left feeling like he was falling short, somehow deficient.
My face felt flushed. Maybe it was the wine.
Water. I needed water. I moved towards the sink, turned on the tap and took a clean glass out of the dishwasher, the bottom shelf of which had already been unloaded.
I let the water run until it was properly cold, then I filled the glass to the rim and brought it to my lips.
I tried to focus on the feeling of the cool liquid slipping down my throat, but heated thoughts of other women who had chosen the prospect of children over the promise of him pricked at my skin.
I kept drinking, intent on drowning them out.
When I was done, I turned back around to Noah, who was still waiting.
I could see the disappointment in his drawn-in lips and heavy eyes.
My own eyes started to sting. ‘I don’t know if I’ll want to have a baby one day, need to have a baby one day – I hope I won’t.
But can’t you see that it’s precisely because I don’t know that I have to consider this?
It might be my last chance. A second chance.
’ I felt the tears start to fall. I walked towards him, hesitantly, and without hesitation he wrapped his arms around me. Again, I told him I was sorry.
‘I’m sorry too.’
We stayed like that for too many minutes to count. When we let go, he went back to preparing the pasta sauce, and I flicked the switch of the kettle. We carried on like nothing had happened, like everything was resolved.
On Saturday, Anna and I met at a spa just off Shoreditch High Street.
I wanted to do something nice for her, to take her mind off the miscarriage.
I’d originally booked us both in for massages, but at the last minute I wondered how she might feel about someone touching her body so soon and switched to facials.
The woman on the phone was a bit huffy about the late change but agreed begrudgingly when I hinted at the circumstances.
We’d planned to go and get coffee beforehand, but when I was on the overground, I received a message from Anna saying she was running late. At the other end, there was a small café around the corner, so I picked up two lattes and one sachet of sugar to go instead.
The sky that day was the kind of blue a child would paint it, one single strip running across the top of an otherwise blank page.
The few trees and flowerbeds were in bloom.
Summer was upon us, and I was happy for even the slightest visual reminder.
Standing outside the entrance to the spa, sipping my coffee, my thoughts turned to my mother and how she must have been enjoying her walks on the beach lately, barefoot instead of swaddled in thick socks and wellies.
I hadn’t spoken to her that week, and I made a mental note to call her later.
‘Great minds,’ said Anna, raising one eyebrow and two takeaway cups as she walked towards me along the pavement. Before I had time to tell her that the extra one I’d bought had probably gone cold, she was offering both of hers to an older couple heading in the opposite direction.
The man, who was shorter than the woman, shook his head and apologised without meeting Anna’s gaze, as if she’d just asked if he could spare some change.
‘Untouched, I promise,’ she added.
I was about to suggest we try someone else when the woman waded in, reaching out her arthritic fingers, which were gnarled and knobby like ginger and would have made my mother’s look positively straight.
‘Well, thanks very much,’ she said, smiling with her teeth clamped together.
Turning to the man, she added, ‘You’ll only go and want one later. ’
I did a double take.
Inside, Anna wrapped an arm around my waist and told me she was happy to see me.
She was bundled up even though it was warm out, in a pair of jeans and a chunky rollneck that skimmed her chin, slightly pointed.
She’d brought with her a handbag that probably cost close to my monthly earnings and was large enough to contain everything she needed.
I studied her face and noticed that the pouches beneath her eyes were a shade darker than usual. ‘Are you sleeping OK?’
‘Oh, see! I told Caleb it was noticeable,’ she said, lightly touching her fingers to one eye. ‘It’s been fucking twitching for the past week.’
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ I said, truthfully, leaning forward to get a better look, ‘but I do hate it when that happens.’
‘I’m scared it’s going to stay like this forever,’ she said, half laughing as she stretched out her lids with her fingers.
In the changing room, to a soundtrack of running showers and gusting hairdryers, we slipped off our clothes and squeezed into our swimming costumes, having agreed that we’d meet at the pool afterwards for a swim.
I stripped down to my underwear, then awkwardly stepped out of my knickers and into my suit, slipping off my bra just before I pulled the straps up and over my shoulders.
Beside me, Anna had casually joined the group of naked bodies around us, which the clinical space had rendered unidealised and anonymous.
All I saw were child-bearing hips and malleable bellies with just the right amount of give.
Breasts big enough to produce an adequate amount of milk.
I curled my toes against the anti-slip tiled floor and avoided the mirror and my own body, too small, too straight.
A minute later, ready to go, Anna gave me a prod. ‘Ready?’